The severed roots will die on their own. Every place you severed a root will produce new fine roots rapidly, sorry.

If you intend to garden in that spot, when you fertilize and water the area, make sure you broadcast the fertilizer and water the entire area or your tree is smart enough to find the extra nutrition and moisture.

Did you every consider a container garden in that area? Even then, you will need to put the containers on bricks/pavers to keep the tree roots from growing into the pot looking for the extra water.

Hi highjack,

Thank you for the reply. Do you think that digging a 10-inch wide trench between my garden and the tree can expose future new-growing roots easily? How deep should it be to make it work? Please forgive me if I am very naive. Actually I'm a very new gardener.

I thought about the container, root barrier, etc ideas. I doubt it's a DIY job. I don't know if I can handle that degree of complexity.

Your further help is much appreciated.

Tony

Tony

The roots will grow back. You could chop them off at the edge of the garden each year or two. I am not sure a trench will help. Roots would just grow to the bottom of the trench and enter your garden.

Once you have removed the roots, new ones would not be a problem if you plan to dig up the garden each year - for example for vegtables or annuals.

The smaller roots left behind will die and help fertilize the soil.

Tree roots will not "find your water and fertilizer" as suggested - it is neither smart nor does it have a brain. Tree roots may grow better in areas that are well watered and fertilized.